I sigh. I wonder if all boys are like this or if it’s just the scarred ones. “How is not taking care of your hand going to make anything better?”
We’re standing by the cars now. My keys are tight in my hand. He’s not getting in my trunk.
He shakes his head. His facial expressions haven’t changed. I can’t read him and again I think about sifting my way through his brain. “You won’t change your mind, will you?”
At that, his personality shifts. Like he goes into a different mode and he’s not the guy who I’ve been with for the past few hours. He’s the one who was here with his friend earlier. “What will you give me if I do?” He steps toward me and I fight to keep myself from pulling back. He’s trying to intimidate me. Or to shift my concern to anger and I’m not going to let that happen.
“How about your phone and your drugs? I found your cell earlier and still have it.” I cross my arms. I’m not this girl. Not tough and strong or the one who always has a good comeback, but I’m determined to make him believe I am.
At that, he smiles. Totally not what I expected. Adrian takes another step toward me. I beg myself not to move away before he’s dipping his head so his mouth is next to my ear. “Trying to play hardball, are you? If you want to play doctor with me, you’re going to have to come home with me to do it.”
“How…” Oh my God. My voice will hardly work. He’s so very close to me and he feels warm and strong. I want to be wrapped up in that warmth. It’s not him. I know that. It’s just the fact that I want to be held—wrapped up in someone’s arms until it feels like everything else goes away.
“Are you going to come home with me, Delaney?” he asks, and I shiver.
Get yourself together! “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. I must have left my X-ray machine at home.” I step back. “Your hand is swollen. It might be broken. Don’t be an idiot.”
At that he looks down at his hand and I know he knows I’m probably right.
“You write… I mean, I assume you do because of the poem. You don’t want to mess around with your hands.”
“That was a mistake,” he says.
“I thought it was beautiful.”
His head turns and he’s looking me in the eye. It’s almost as though he’s trying to dissect me. My insides want to find a dark corner to hide in. I’m not sure anyone has looked at me this intensely in my whole life. I want to ask him what he sees. My eyes close, afraid of what he’ll find there. Afraid I’ll show him who I am. Who my dad is, even though that’s what I’m supposed to want.
Adrian’s voice is tight when he speaks. “It’s not broken. I’ve had enough broken bones to know that. If you’re feeling like a martyr and want to take care of it, come with me. If not, I’ll see you later.”
When I open my eyes, he’s already backing away and heading to his car.
The easiest thing to do would be to walk away. It’s the smartest, but I can’t. Even though he doesn’t know it, we’re tied together. Like there’s this thin thread connecting us that Adrian can’t see. He’s been bleeding for years because of something my father did and I can’t let that go.
Even though I know I should. I’ve never really had to stand up for anything in my life. Things were so easy before, and ever since, we’ve just been going through the motions. This small thing feels like my one shot to take a stand. God, do I want that.
“Do… do you have a first-aid kit?”
“I think it’s with your X-ray machine.”
I roll my eyes. “Is there a pharmacy on the way to your house?”
Adrian sighs. “Just follow me.”
As soon as I get into my car, I pull out my cell phone. It’s 5:00 a.m. I’m supposed to be off work in an hour, which means Maddox will be expecting me. There’s no way in hell I can tell him where I’m going—he’ll lose it—so I pray the whole time I’m calling that he’ll sleep through it.
I cock my head so my phone rests between my ear and shoulder, allowing me to drive.
My brother’s voice comes through the speaker. “Leave a message” is all his voice mail says.
“Hey, Maddy. I’m going to be a little late today. My relief is having car trouble and she won’t be in on time. I’ll be home later.”
I click OFF and toss the cell on the passenger seat. We make a quick stop at a twenty-four-hour pharmacy before I follow Adrian to a tiny house in a run-down neighborhood. Not that mine’s all that, but his is definitely worse.
I can hardly hear anything over the pulse in my ears. Please let me be doing the right thing. Please let me be doing the right thing.
I watch Adrian as he unlocks the door. His eyes are puffy, little dark rings beneath them that look as though he hasn’t really slept in a while. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask him, but when I think about our situation, I stop myself. I’m not sure if I should intertwine my life any more with his. If it turns out as bad as Maddox thinks it will, I’ll only be making things worse.
But then I’m there too. Already pulling that invisible thread tighter. Thinking about his poem and the hurt that showed through his words.
He opens the door. Without saying a word, Adrian nods for me to go inside. I step into the lonely house. It somehow feels darker than it should. He hits the first light.
A few beer bottles litter a table. An old couch, love seat, and chair sit around a TV. No pictures are on the walls and I suddenly feel a little sadder than I did before I came inside.
Adrian walks down the hall, turning on more lights as he goes, and I wonder if I’m supposed to follow him. If I should turn around and walk back out, but I do neither. My feet are lead, welded to the floor until he peeks his head out of a room and asks, “Aren’t we playing doctor now?” He raises one of his eyebrows.
I try and shake off the nerves setting my bones in concrete and head his way. He has the first-aid kit in his hand, which he sets on the counter of the small bathroom.
My eyes search the room for something personal, anything, but the only thing I see is a single toothbrush in a cup. It’s blue and looks lonely.
“There should be gloves in there,” he says, before leaning against the counter. I’m surprised he’s letting me do this so easily, but at the look of concentration in his eyes, I wonder if it’s calculated. If there is some motive behind it that I don’t know. Or maybe I do know and don’t want to acknowledge it.
After opening the first-aid kit and putting on the rubber gloves, I reach for Adrian’s hand and start to unwind the cloth. There’s always been something sexy to me about a guy’s hands. I remember my first crush, a boy named Patrick. He was so cute and all the girls liked him. We had to hold hands in gym class, but his were all sweaty and warm. They stuck to mine, and somehow those sticky hands wiped away any crush I had.
Adrian’s hands aren’t like that. Not that I should be paying attention, but they’re strong, with veins traveling across them. He has a little callus on his middle finger, where a pen or pencil would sit, and I wonder if he writes a lot. I have a feeling he does and a brief wish to read more of it flashes through my head.
Little open wounds spring to life again as I free his hand. Blood drips down a couple of his fingers. I’ve never done real well with blood, so I look at Adrian to see if he notices. His eyes aren’t on his hand, though. They’re on me. On my face, almost like he can’t take them away. Like he’s locked there and I wonder what he’s seeing. If the truth is in my eyes or if maybe it makes him feel close to someone in a way he won’t let himself otherwise.
“What?” I finally pry my mouth open to ask.
“Nothing.”
But he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t open his mouth to speak and I know that’s all I’m going to get from him—this X-ray vision that I’m not sure what to do with.
“There might be glass in it.” I look down at his hand, setting the cloth aside. I don’t let him go as I use the other hand to turn on the water. Adrian’s fingers begin to tremble and I’m about to ask him why he’s shaking when I realize it’s because of me. That I’m shaking and vibrating through him and I wonder if he’ll call me on it, but he doesn’t.
“Maybe,” he replies, and without looking, I know he’s still staring at me.
“Over the sink,” I say, pulling his hand slightly. The cuts don’t look too deep, but there are quite a few of them. His knuckles are swollen and I have the urge to kiss them after they’re clean. An urge I have no business having. Is it him, I wonder, or who he is to me? Because I know what my father took from him.
“Pour the peroxide on.”
I open the bottle and then holding his hand, I tilt it until clear liquid is mixing with red. Each little wound bubbles and sizzles and I wonder if it hurts, if heat burns in his hand, so I risk a glance in the mirror to see he’s looking at me there. I can’t read the expression on his face. I never really can, but I don’t turn away. We watch each other and a wrinkle forms over his eyes and he studies me like there will be a test on me later and I wonder if I passed.
If he’ll pass on whatever he learns.
It’s too much, and I have to look away. He’s bleeding because of me. Been bleeding because of my family and he doesn’t know it.
I suddenly wonder if my dad hadn’t driven into that yard if there would be another toothbrush in the cup. A girlfriend or maybe he’d still be with his sister and there would be a little Batman toothbrush there for his nephew.
Tears beg for release, but I don’t let them come. Instead I set the bottle back down, wet a cloth from the kit, and gently wash the blood from his hand. Adrian doesn’t flinch or speak and soon he’s all clean and wrapped up. For the first time in what feels like forever, I let go of his hand.
“All done,” I say, and I know it’s a silly thing to let come out of my mouth.
Still there are no words, so I look up at him and he’s close, so very close, and I notice the depth of his eyes and the stubble on his face and earring holes in his ears.
Finally his gaze leaves my eyes and they land on my lips. “I think I’ll call you Casper,” he whispers, and then his mouth comes down on mine. It’s gentle at first. My instinct is to pull away. I don’t know him and there are too many secrets and too much history between us for me to let him do this, but I like the way he tastes and can’t help but moan when his tongue slides along the seam of my lips.
And then my mouth is opening and now he’s tasting me and I’m tasting him more deeply. I have never, ever been kissed like this in my life. A slow tingle forms in my stomach and shoots through me and then he’s twisting me and pinning me against the counter. I feel his erection against my stomach, his good hand in my hair.
My body is screaming YES, because it feels good to be worshipped like this, but then my mind cuts in. I see the lonely toothbrush and think about his poem, space, and know that his life is darker because of something that’s connected to me.
I pull my mouth away. “Wait.”
Adrian does. His lips don’t move toward mine again, but he also doesn’t move away. I still feel each muscled contour of his body and wish I could wrap up inside it. Just to feel protected, even if it’s only make-believe.
“I can’t… We shouldn’t…” If you knew, you wouldn’t want to. You’d throw me out.
“I think we can and maybe it doesn’t matter if we should.” His voice is low, sexy. I shiver.
“It does.” He doesn’t make it easy for me to squeeze around him, but he doesn’t stop me either. “It does,” I say again. “I should go. Make sure you clean that again and change your bandage.”